


Portraits

by orphan_account



Category: Colditz (1972)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Insomnia, M/M, Pain, Pencil sketches, Portraits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 15:26:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4105825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George has insomnia so prefers to spend his nights alone thinking and sketching portraits. Lately he's been making portraits of a boy he knew in the army. Mohn can't sleep most nights as well and accidentally stumbles onto George's hideout. They start developing a secret friendship which may turn out to be more than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Portraits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Judopixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Judopixie/gifts).



0200, 21st February, 1944, Friday

George slipped out of bed quietly at 2 am. It was no use, he wasn't going to get sleep. The bed creaked a little and Simon who slept on the bunk underneath him, grunted and turned in his sleep. He tiptoed quietly out of the room and closed the door behind him. The corridor was draughty and when it was windy, it was even colder.

George shivered a little as he climbed down the steps. He reached his favourite seat, a little arch that you could sit under in the corridor and sat down. He took out a fruit cake he had saved from dinner and broke off a few crumbs and ate them. It was deadly quiet in the castle, no one stirred. George preferred it this way sometimes. Privacy was hard to get in this castle, somebody was always in the room and the escape committee meetings took up a lot of time. He felt relieved and happy that these little moments were just his, he didn't have to share his time with anyone. He took out a bundle of letters from his wife and read them slowly again. There hadn't been a letter from her recently. He hoped his father was doing okay. His wife had been hinting how difficult it was to take care of such a large house when only two people lived in it.

He put the letters back in his jacket pocket and took out his sketchbook. He had been working on this sketch for some time. Somehow he couldn't get the eyes right. There were footsteps on the corridor. George hurriedly put away the sketchbook and looked as Major Mohn came in sight.

'I wasn't expecting anybody to be here.' Mohn muttered.

'I had the same idea. I couldn't sleep. I usually can't sleep.'

'You come here every night?'

'Pretty much. I like it, it's quiet around here.'

'I will not disturb you then.' Mohn said as he started walking.

'You can't sleep too?'

Mohn shook his head.

'You can stay if you like. As long as you don't disturb me.'

Mohn looked out of the window at the clear night. Not a leaf stirred on the trees. He walked around for a while, watching George sketch.

'I didn't know you were an artist, Mr. Brent.'

'There are plenty of things you didn't know about me, Major.'

He tried to look at the sketch but George hid it from view.

'It's not complete yet.'

Mohn paced around the corridor, his boots making a slow steady thump-thump noise against the hard concrete floor.

George tried to ignore the noise. He was irritated by Major Mohn's presence and wished he would go away. He must have rubbed out the eyes and drawn them again several times. Every time, Jim's eyes turned out to be sorrowful and he wanted them to look cheerful.

'Having trouble, Mr. Brent?'

'I can't get the eyes just right. They come out looking sad.'

'What's wrong with sad looking eyes?'

'Nothing.'

George took a bite of the fruit cake and offered the rest of it to Mohn. He shook his head.

'It's not poisoned, I assure you. You don't like cake?'

'I can't eat it. I'd rather not.'

Mohn paced up and down once again and none of them said a word to each other. He looked at his watch as George yawned.

'It's nearly 4 30 am. Appelle is in an hour, Mr. Brent.'

'I know, I've been here long enough to know how things work.'

Mohn walked back and forth and after a few minutes walked away.

George stuffed the sketchbook and reluctantly got up dusting the crumbs from his old jacket. It was still very cold and he pulled the jacket tight around his chest as he went back to bed.

0100, 1st March, Saturday

George had finally given up trying to draw the eyes after struggling with them for over a week and was working on the nose and the mouth. Jim had a very pretty mouth, and an upturned nose that made him look haughty when anyone who knew him would testify that that couldn't be farther from the truth. He sketched the features in and became so engrossed in the drawing that he didn't notice a scratching noise on the corridor. At first he thought it was some rats, but then he remembered that it might be Major Mohn on his night rounds of the castle.

His boots came first in sight and then the rest of Major Mohn followed.

'Is it going to be a habit, Mr. Brent?'

'You've seen me sitting here, for a week now. It already is. I have insomnia. You've been coming here almost everyday too, you don't sleep at all?'

'I tried to sleep.'

'Nightmares?'

Mohn smiled sadly. 

'Nothing to be ashamed of.' George smiled. 

Mohn paced around the corridor. He had a spasm of pain and he hid his face and winced until it subsided.

'Your stomach wound?' George asked, his eyes still focused on his drawing.

'Yes.'

'It still hurts?'

'Yes, sometimes.'

'And you have to watch what you eat?'

'Yes and at what times I eat.'

'And drink?'

'None.'

'That must be terrible.' George gave him a smile. Mohn nodded in return.

'You can sit down and rest Major.'

He looked at George in surprise and then accepted his invitation. He winced as he sat down gingerly on the hard cold floor.

'I didn't realise it would be so cold. Did you get your eyes right?'

'What?'

'The eyes on your drawing, you said you didn't like them.' He pointed at the sketch as he sat down.

'No, I left the eyes. I'm drawing the rest of his face.' George showed the part completed sketch to him.

'This is very lifelike. You can draw very well. I didn't know you had such talent. Who is he?'

'A friend I used to know. We fought together.'

Mohn got up and stared outside the window. The trees were swaying in the breeze and a lone bird or two was flying high but he looked straight ahead without seeing anything.  

The sketch reminded him of Fritz for some reason. Fritz was very good looking too just like the boy in that sketch. The eyes, though, Fritz's eyes were always smiling. He hid his true feelings and drowned them in laughter. Only once had he seen Fritz cry. That was when he had gotten news from home of his mother's death. He hadn't even cried when he lay injured and dying. At that moment he had told Horst to be brave, had told him not to cry. Mohn blinked several times till the tears left his eyes and then turned round and walked back and forth without saying a word.

When it was four in the morning, he nodded and walked back up the stairs, shoulders slumped and deep in thought.   

0130 3rd March, Monday

'You're here again, Mr. Brent?'        

'I did try to sleep. I want to finish this sketch and this is the only time when I have some peace and quiet.' George said, taking a bite of leftover bread and cheese that he had kept in a handkerchief.

'What happened to him?' Mohn asked sitting down and grimacing.

'Jim? Oh he died,' George said simply as he shaded in the uniform, 'he died in Belgium. I was with him. I saw him die. I heard the noise of a gunshot and he was dead instantly, no pain, no goodbye George, no nothing. Just a blank expression on his face. His eyes though, I still can't get them out of my mind. His eyes were incredibly sad. He was very young too. I've been trying to give him a happy ending since then.'

'Happy ending?'

George showed his sketchbook. 'There were pictures of Jim in various postures, with different people. He was always laughing, always happy and content, except his eyes, in all the pictures Jim's eyes were sad.

'It's like he's hiding something in his eyes.'

'I know the feeling.' Mohn said before he could stop himself, 'I had friends die in front of my eyes too. Fritz, he looked very much like your friend here. He couldn't stop laughing and making people cheerful and he was a wonderful person. He died in my arms. He was shot in the chest and he bled out before we could take him to the hospital.'

'I'm sorry, Major.' George put his hand on Mohn's shoulder.

Mohn did not jerk his shoulder away even though that was his first instinct.

He got up and walked around, 'It's something that happens in a war. I'm sorry for your friend.'

'He was a lovely person, so warm and friendly.' George said.

Mohn walked around in silence and then, 'Is that why you can't sleep?'

'Maybe, yes. I wish there was something I could have done more. I wish there had been a way to save him.'

'You couldn't have, he died instantly.'

'He wasn't supposed to be there with us. A few of us, went ahead for a scouting mission, to see how far we could get to one of your German bases. Jim was not supposed to have come. He wasn't supposed to have come.' George put his head in his hands and cried. This time Mohn put his hand on his shoulder and he was surprised to hear himself say the words, 'It's not your fault.'

He knew it was true. It was advice that he should have been telling himself too. He still blamed himself for Fritz's death. He walked around till the tears clouding his eyes disappeared.

 0300 12th March, Tuesday

George was completing his drawing while Mohn walked around. Neither of them said a word except a nod in acknowledgement but it did not matter. They felt a shared bond between them, a bond of losing loved ones.

0200 20th March,  Wednesday

George was waiting to hear Mohn's footsteps. All day they had to pretend to be enemies, at night they could be whatever they wanted to be. Even friends.

Mohn brought a chocolate bar with him.

'I don't eat chocolate. I know you like them.'

'That is a strange occurrence after you confiscated our Red Cross parcels.'

'That was almost a year ago. I haven't since then.'

'No, that's true.'

'Well, if you don't want it.' Mohn said.

George pocketed it quickly, 'If you're being generous, I had best take you up on your offer, hadn't I? Who knows when we'll see such generosity again.'

Horst sat down.

'I've got a letter here from my father.'

'Is he alright?'

Oh yes, he's old, so he complains and is a bit crabby at times. My wife tries her best to bear with his complaints with good humour. Apparently he's sacked our old gardener, who's 65 and has been working in our gardens for nearly thirty odd years, on some minor disagreement.'

Mohn smiled.

'What was your father like?' George asked.

'He wasn't much of a father. He...I remember him being angry all the time and fighting and shouting. He drank a lot. It made it worse.' He gave a sad smile, 'I don't think about it much. Sometimes, in memories, I see him still as he was back then, screaming at Mama.'

George stroked Mohn's arm. Mohn rested his head on George's shoulder and they just sat there in silence, each understanding the other's thoughts without needing words. 

0235 4th April, Thursday 

'It's annoying to always hide, not show your true feelings.'

'What do you mean?' Mohn asked sitting down, 'You mean you and Jim.'

'How do you know?'

'It doesn't take a genius to figure out you cared for him a lot, a lot more than you would for a friend.'

'Well, I love my wife but I loved him too. He was the sweetest boy I had ever met. He was the only one I've ever felt this way about. Before the war, I had never thought of any man in that way.'

'I'm sorry he's dead.'

'Well,' George smiled sadly as he started making a new sketch, 'It's annoying that we can talk like this in the middle of the night. In the day, we hate each other and ignore each other.'

Mohn sighed, 'We can't, we're enemies.'

'Even though we have more in common than I'll ever have with a lot of my own friends.'

'Even then.'

'What if it were out in the open?' George smiled wickedly.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean, what if we left a little reminder? A little sketch, just you and me.'

Mohn laughed, 'They'd make fun of you.'

'I wouldn't care.'

'Yes you would. Yes you would. This is our escape, this is where we can be who we really are but, I can't show this side of me to the world and neither can you.'

'Would you prefer it that they hated you for the rest of their lives?'

'I'm used to it. I don't care, just as long as I'm doing my job properly.'

George laughed, 'Your eyes are sad too, Major. Sad like Jim's eyes but you have to look closer to find that.'

'I don't want people to look,' Mohn got up and started pacing around, 'I'm sorry now that I showed them to you.'

'I'm not.'

'No, neither am I.' Mohn considered, looking out of the window, 'It's a relief, after a year of being hated and insulted behind your back. It's a relief to be myself again in front of someone.'

'I will give you the picture when I'm finished.'

'Why not keep it yourself?'

'And have Simon, Tim and Dick tease me mercilessly, they'll never let me forget it and what's more it'll be a sign of the biggest betrayal ever, cavorting with the enemy they'd call it.'

'But we've done nothing.'

'They won't understand. They won't understand how you can love someone so deeply that it doesn't matter that you're not with them but you're just happy in the thought that they are happy. That's why I've never told them about Jim. That's why I'll never tell them about us. You have no friends here, you can keep it without it being noticed.'

Mohn sighed, that was true.

0300 19th April, Friday

'I think I've seen you working on this sketch for nearly two weeks now. When is it going to be ready?'

'Patience, Major. I'm almost done.'

He signed something underneath and showed it to Mohn.

'There, what do you think?'

'I? I think it's a wonderful likeness of the two of us.'

'You can laugh but it feels very real, like I've put some part of me into the sketch.'

 George and Horst it said underneath.

'I'll cherish it.' Mohn said, his face revealing very little emotion.

George was putting away his pencils carefully, 'It was nothing.' He muttered embarrassed.

'You've even got all the details of my uniform right.'

'I'm a keen observer,' ~~~~

Mohn sat down besides Brent and they smiled at each other,

'Thank you George.'

'You're welcome, Horst.'

They stayed together like that. George had his arm round Mohn's shoulder and they held each other's hands. George put his head on Mohn's shoulder and Mohn nestled his face in his hair. They sat there till the first rays of the sun broke through the darkness.

'I didn't realise where the time went. There's only half an hour to appelle, I must go,' Mohn said looking at his watch and getting up.

George got up as well and they both went up the stairs not saying a word, not looking at each other, till he came to the British quarters and Mohn found the door to his office.

 

1200 25th April, 1945

The guard found a faded pencil sketch inside the box Major Mohn had kept under his bed, as he was cleaning the room. The box used to be locked but Mohn had left behind the key. The sketch was faded, the outlines had been smudged but the guard could see that the portrait was of two men who were sitting together, smiling.

The scrawling handwriting at the back still visible though faint read,

To Horst,

From George, with all my love.

The guard didn't know what to do with the portrait. Should he give it to Ulmann or show it to the Kommandant. After Major Mohn's escape, all the effects he had left behind had been taken care of by the Kommandant. He didn't know whether a portrait would be important enough to show to the Kommandant, especially such an intimate one.

Erikson was no fool. He knew that the line did not mean something two friends would say to each other. He wasn't even sure Major Mohn had any friends. Certainly he had never seen the dour looking Major ever be friendly with anyone. He even ate most of his meals outside the mess, alone in his office.  

He couldn't help but be drawn into the portrait though. It showed Major Mohn as he had never seen him before. He was smiling and he had his arm round the other man's shoulder. He couldn't make out who the other man was. The face was smudged and faded but he couldn't help stare at the portrait, at the two people who looked happy for a fleeting moment that had been captured forever; except for their eyes, the eyes carried all the pain and the hurt.

'Erikson.' 

He looked at the half opened door and at the footsteps outside. He didn't want the Kommandant to know, it was not important, not now, when the Major was gone for nearly a month. He tore up the portrait and put it in the dustbin before carrying it and his broom away and locking the door.


End file.
